Re: Starting off
> I just got a SparcStation 1 that I'm hoping to install an OS on. I'm
> thinking about Linux 2.2.x but please suggest others if they are feasible
> (or if the machine is too slow for that stuff).
<shrug> Sounds good to me.
> I'm not really sure how OS installs are supposed to go on suns,
Debian has ample documentation on how to install Debian on Sparcs. You
should read that. It will clear up many of your questions. Look on
the Debian FTP sites. You will find the instructions in the same
directory as the files for the sparc boot disk.
> but I've
> been "thunking" a bit and have some guesses:
>
> 1. Stick a PC scsi cd-rom on the scsi bus.
> 2. Make a Linux (UltraLinux in some distribution?) CD from ISO.
> 3. Get into the nvram somehow and boot from cdrom.
> 4. Linux installs just as on PC's.
That is one possible way.
> Other questions:
> 1. The sun didn't come with a floppy. Will a PC floppy work? The connector
> looks the same.
I don't really know the answer to this. I despise floppy disks personally.
I try to avoid using them wherever possible.
If you have a machine which does not have any internal removable media
drives, and you have access to a network, I recommend installing Debian
directly from the network without using any disks at all. Please read
the instructions. They explain how to do this.
> 2. The machine has 32mb ram (I think)
No, 32 millibits of ram is not enough for anything. You'd need much more
than that to compute 1+1=2. 32 megabytes would be sufficient for X, though.
> and a b/w video card. Will this work
> for X? (The sunos currently installed has openwin, so I know framebuffer
> is good, but the software's really screwed up good).
There is a monochrome frame buffer driver available with Debian. I've
never tried it myself, but, it should work.
Eric
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